Genre: Art House Drama

Duration: 83 mins

Format: 35mm

Director: Alexey Balabanov

Cast: Mikhail Skryabin, Yuri Matveyev, Alexander Mosin.

Awards: Nominated for Best Film and Best Director (2010 NIKA Awards)

Set in the mid 1990's, this chilling mafia tale explores the criminal underworld of St. Petersburg. The Stoker (Skryabin), a shell-shocked Afghan war hero, shovels coal into a furnace to heat a building. In his spare time Skryabin remembers the past, his ancestors, and tries to type an epic narrative about a historical outlaw. He is visited by a mafia hitman who uses the furnace to dispose of corpses. Unwillingly Skryabin chooses to comply. But when immediate family members become involved, he has no choice but to take matters into his own hands. The blunt provocations and ironic tone is unsettling and present an image of a world where gang liquidations are the norm. Symbolism within the film is prominent with the boiler representing the home, and the fire the corruption and evil that inevitably destroys it. The Stoker is a fantastic and grimly evocative modern tale from the master of Russian crime cinema that looks at life from the perspective of the innocent.